Top 5 Cooking Simulator Games on Steam

Cooking has been implemented into a lot of games – sometimes for survival purposes like in Don’t Starve, or sometimes just to help you along with your day like in Stardew Valley. A lot of popular cooking simulation games have been on the DS, like Cooking Mama, or as a mobile app. But what about cooking games on Steam?

Today, I'm going to nourish those cravings of your inner foodie with a list of cooking games you can find on Steam. I’ll be focusing on games that revolve solely around cooking gameplay. Other games that have cooking in them, but don't use it at the core of their gameplay, won’t be included.

Let's get started!

5. Cooking Academy: Fires and Knives

Price: $14.99Rating: Positive

I can't imagine someone not loving pancakes.

Starting off hot, there’s Cooking Academy: Fire and Knives – a collection of three Cooking Academy games! Taking place in the kitchens of a prestigious culinary school, your goal is to become a master chef through various ‘cooking’ mini-games such as using your mouse to de-shell shrip or a mini rhythm game that makes you time when to add ingredients.

Cooking Academy: Fire and Knives is a mix of mini-games and education. You’ll learn more than 175 recipes and food trivia while mastering new cooking skills. Thus, inspiring you to cook IRL!

4. Cooking Dash

Price: $9.99Rating: Positive

Poor Flo, how does she handle everything?

If anyone remembers Flo from Diner Dash, she returns yet again with her grandmother in Cooking Dash. After their chef leaves Flo’s Diner to pursue a career in reality (cooking) TV and takes all the other chefs in DinerTown as guests, it’s up to Flo and her grandmother to help the restaurants in town with their standard level set-up. Once you fully helped one restaurant, you'll move to another to help cook and serve.

Cooking Dash offers the nostalgia of Diner Dash but with a twist, with the player serving both as a waiter and a chef.

3. Pizza Express

Price: $6.99Rating: Very Positive

Is that a pizza cat I see?

Pixelated with some campy humor, Omni Interactive’s Indie title, Pizza Express, is a restaurant simulator where you join Gastone and his friend Lucky on a “tasty adventure” to become the best pizzeria in town.

Instead of only cooking meals via mini-games, you control everything -- including the menu, price, advertisements, and the interior decor of the restaurant. There’s also a story going on in the background that has alternate endings -- and I won't spoil.

2. Cook Serve Delicious

Price: $9.99 Rating: Overwhelmingly Positive

It's time for a good ol' fashioned cooking battle!

Called a hardcore restaurant sim on its Steam page, Cook, Serve, Deliciousgives players complete control over their restaurant, which is similar to Pizza Express. Can you prove your skills with fast-paced mini-games? Or better yet, will you be able to defeat other online chefs in the game's DLC, Battle Kitchen Edition?

There are also moments you have to micromanage outside of the restaurant, such as throwing parties or reading your virtual mail in order get the opportunity to be cast in the ‘Iron Cook’ TV show.

1. Overcooked

Price: $16.99Rating: Very Positive

Space food has never looked so good.

Finally, we have Overcooked, a local co-op game for 1-4 players. As a team, you and your friends must cook up orders for customers in somewhat precarious environments like a space station, where rooms constantly rotate, or in the depths of a volcano.

With slapstick humor and hilarious visuals, hopefully, you and your friends will learn to properly work together, or it’ll all end with someone grabbing a fire extinguisher.

Now it's time for you to start cooking (virtually and hopefully IRL). Whether you're a virtual chef combating other online players or trying to work together to cook the best meals in town, or even attempting to manage your own restaurant, be sure to make Cooking Mama proud.

"Better than Mama!"

What do you think? What are your favorite cooking games? Comment below!